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Big Time Rush Announces Forever Tour

FIRST HEADLINE TOUR IN NEARLY A DECADE 

Kicks off june 23, 2022 in washington, dc making stops at iconic venues , with the band’s first ever headline date at madison square garden, dixie d’amelio to join as special guest on select dates, tickets on sale friday, february 25 at 11am local time, watch the band make the special announcement & debut their new single “not giving you up” on good morning america here  , “not giving you up” out friday, february 25 pre-save the single here.

Today, beloved pop super-group Big Time Rush has announced their forthcoming Forever Tour . Produced by Live Nation, the 41-show tour will kick off on June 23 rd at The Theater at MGM National Harbor in Washington, DC, making stops at iconic venues nationwide, including New York City’s Madison Square Garden on June 30 th , before wrapping up at the Concord Pavilion in Concord, CA on August 20 th . Joining Big Time Rush on the road for select dates is special guest, recording artist, social media phenom and Big Time Rush super-fan, Dixie D’Amelio . Tickets go on-sale to the general public starting Friday, February 25 th at 11am local time on bigtimerushofficial.com .

The top-selling hitmakers appeared on Good Morning America to make their highly anticipated tour announcement, including news that 3x Triller Billboard Chart Topper Dixie D’Amelio will join them on tour as a special guest. Forever Tour is Big Time Rush’s first official tour since reuniting and will bring the pop-culture icons to Madison Square Garden for their first ever headlining show at the famed building. Always most at home in NYC, the band promises an epic hometown show of sorts for the June 30 th event. 

After exclusively revealing their nationwide tour plans, the group then took to the GMA stage for the world premiere and debut performance of their upcoming single “Not Giving You Up.” The song is officially due out this Friday, February 25 th and can be pre-saved HERE . The song will be accompanied by a music video that sees the band jumping into a career as relationship specialists. The comedic masterpiece is directed by Erik Rojas and will premiere exclusively on RollingStone.com at 7am PST.

It has been 8 years since the band was last together in official capacity, with this latest run marking the new era of Big Time Rush .

“Not only are we excited to be sharing new music with you this week, but we’ve been holding onto this secret for over two years and now it’s official!” said the band. “We are going back on tour! We can’t thank you enough for all of your love and support over all these years and we can’t wait to see you at the “FOREVER♾TOUR”

The news follows a whirlwind 2021 for the band, where all four original band members, Kendall Schmidt, James Maslow, Logan Henderson and Carlos PenaVega , officially reunited for the release of their first new music in eight years – Their single “ Call It Like I See It ” . The band debuted the song with a performance at iHeartRadio Jingle Ball in Philadelphia, followed by Jingle Ball Atlanta, and then went on to play two special live shows in Chicago and NYC, which sold-out in a matter of minutes, blowing expectations out of the water and showcasing the power of the band’s devoted fandom.

Citi is the official card of the Forever Tour. Citi cardmembers will have access to presale tickets beginning Wednesday, February 23 at 12pm local time until Thursday, February 24 at 10pm local time through the Citi Entertainment program. For complete presale details visit www.citientertainment.com .  

For more information please visit bigtimerushofficial.com .

Big Time Rush THE FOREVER TOUR2022 Dates:

*denotes dates with Dixie D’Amelio

ABOUT BIG TIME RUSH: Big Time Rush became an overnight sensation in November 2009 when the scripted TV show of the same name launched on Nickelodeon. The show focused on the Hollywood adventures of four hockey players from Minnesota after they were selected to form a boy band. The show a huge success and later, Carlos, Kendall, James, and Logan came to life as a band off the screen releasing three full length albums and performing across the globe. As the show concluded in July 2013 and after four years of recording music and touring as a band, they went their separate ways but remained close friends through the years.   After 7 years, in an effort to bring joy to their fans during quarantine around the world, the members of Big Time Rush decided to appear together as a group to send a message of love and togetherness. This was soon followed by a socially distant performance of an acoustic version of their smash hit, “Worldwide”. These appearances resulted in hysteria amongst their fans and in the media, followed by BTR receiving 10+ million streams in 2020 alone. Four seasons of the TV show were added last to Netflix in March 2021 and have appeared in the Netflix “Top 10” trending titles.   The band finished off 2021 with a performance at iHeartRadio Jingle Ball in Philadelphia as well as 2 sold out shows in Chicago and NYC, capping it off with the release of their first single in 8 years, “Call It Like I See It”, on Dec. 13th. Stay tuned for big things to come because Big Time Rush is back.

About Live Nation Entertainment: Live Nation Entertainment (NYSE: LYV) is the world’s leading live entertainment company comprised of global market leaders: Ticketmaster, Live Nation Concerts, and Live Nation Sponsorship. For additional information, visit www.livenationentertainment.com .

Media Contacts:

For Big Time Rush:

Erica Gerard | [email protected]

Kelsey Lewis | [email protected]  

Live Nation Concerts:

Monique Sowinski | [email protected]  

Read more about

Forever Tour

• View history

The Forever Tour is the seventh concert tour and sixth headlining tour by Big Time Rush and the first full-length tour since the band's 2021 comeback. The tour began on June 23, 2022, in Oxon Hill, MD. The band announced the tour and its dates on February 21, 2022, with ticket presales starting on February 23. On March 8, 2022, it was confirmed that the band would be traveling all around the world in an announcement of three new shows in Mexico. The three newly added shows sold out in less than a day.

• 1 Background
• 2 Opening act
• 4.1 Cancelled
• 7 References
• 8 Navigation

Background [ ]

Big Time Rush announced the Forever Tour during their appearance on Good Morning America on February 21, 2022. Tickets went on sale the same day. [1]

Opening act [ ]

American singer and social media personality Dixie D'Amelio is featured as a special guest on the Forever Tour, opening for the first 23 dates. [1] On June 6, Big time Rush announced that Spencer Sutherland would be opening for the final 18 United States dates.

Setlist [ ]

• " Windows Down "
• " Music Sounds Better "
• " Love Me Again "
• " Any Kind of Guy "
• " Amazing "
• " Call It Like I See It "
• " Show Me "
• " Not Giving You Up "
• " Halfway There "
• " No Idea "
• " Confetti Falling "
• " I Know You Know " (Acoustic)
• " Worldwide " (Acoustic)
• " Time of Our Life "
• " Paralyzed "
• " City Is Ours "/" Big Night "/" Til I Forget About You "
• " Nothing Even Matters "
• " If I Ruled the World "
• " Big Time Rush "
• " Boyfriend "

Cancelled [ ]

• Before performing "I Know You Know" at each show, Big Time Rush would perform a medley of different songs with Carlos on the ukelele. Some of the songs they would perform included a variety of covers including "As It Was" and "Watermelon Sugar", and original songs including " Na Na Na ", " Cover Girl ", and " The Giant Turd Song " from Big Time Rush .
• During select dates, "Dale Pa' Ya" was performed in between "Call It Like I See It" and "Show Me". It was permanently added to the setlist starting with the show in Rogers, AR.
• At the show in Philadelphia, PA, singer Rick Astley joined the band in a surprise appearance to cover his song "Never Gonna Give You Up".
• Logan posted a picture of every show the band performed on the tour to his Instagram.
• Maffio joined the band for their Mexico tour dates.

Gallery [ ]

References [ ]

• ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Big Time Rush - Tour". bigtimerushofficial.com . Retrieved 21 February 2022.
• 1 Kendall Knight
• 2 James Diamond
• 3 Lucy Stone

Big Time Rush Is Feeling The Rush Again

Now touring with Dixie D’Amelio, the group is happy with their place in pop.

Big Time Rush forgot about the screams that coincide with boy band mega-fame. “It was deafening. It was so loud,” Carlos PenaVega tells Elite Daily of the group’s first show back in eight years. “I didn't think it was going to [be like that].”

On June 23, Carlos, Kendall Schmidt, James Maslow, and Logan Henderson took the stage together for their first headlining show in nearly a decade at the MGM National Harbor outside of Washington, D.C.. It was their first of 41 shows part of the ongoing Forever Tour, which is an ironic title considering there was a moment where Big Time Rush was done.

The band formed and first rose to fame while starring on the Nickelodeon teen TV series Big Time Rush , which ran from 2009 to 2013. They released three albums in three years before taking an extended hiatus in 2014 to focus on their solo careers.

In 2021, they reunited to release “Call It Like I See It.” The group has since released four more songs, including “Honey” in June. The music video for the sticky-sweet new song dropped on July 18, and it’s an ode to the first half of their summer back on tour.

Nostalgia for the 2010s is high with fellow boy banders The Jonas Brothers and 5 Seconds of Summer regularly performing together again, while franchises like Twilight and The Hunger Games are trending once more. So it couldn’t be more fitting for Big Time Rush to return; however, their comeback is not your traditional boy band reunion tour.

Much like their tour name suggests, the band says they’re in it for the long haul and likely won’t stop performing after their tour wraps on Aug. 20 in Concord, California. Their goal is to eventually take the Forever Tour abroad. “We literally just plan on touring forever. We're not going to age, [and] we're not going to go away,” Carlos says, often speaking for the group. “We're [not] going to just do something and be done. It's very much a comeback tour.”

They’ve taken inspiration from New Kids On The Block, another band that spent decades releasing and performing new music. “Their performances, their setups, how they basically went back, took their brand and did it their way, that's been inspirational to us because we're doing a very similar thing,” Carlos says.

Despite the years-long break, the band says they quickly fell back into a groove on stage. Still, Logan says he felt jittery the first night of their tour. “The first three or four songs, I think it was like, ‘Oh crap, we have an audience,’” he says.

Some of those audience members likely attended a Big Time Rush show before. “We had some grown men with vintage, Big Time Rush T-shirts just jamming along, holding a beer,” Carlos says.

What was somewhat surprising to the band is they’ve garnered a new generation of fans, including Carlos’ three children, who were in attendance on opening night. “[It was] super special because they've never seen me do anything like that,” he says. “I have videos from somebody filming behind them, and they're just dancing along.” Though some of the younger fans might have also been there to see Big Time Rush’s supporting act: pop star and TikTok legend Dixie D’Amelio .

After running into Dixie several times on iHeartRadio’s Jingle Ball tour last year, the band asked her if she’d be interested in opening for them on tour. To their surprise, she said yes. “She's doing something that's really different. I totally respect the fact that she's able to get out of her comfort zone and try something new and succeed doing it,” Carlos says, noting they’re “grateful” to have her on tour.

While some bands struggle with finding their footing after years away, Big Time Rush is embracing the hustle once again. “It's how are we better than what we were before? How do we keep on improving?” James says of their mentality this time around. “Ultimately, we're only in competition with ourselves.”

Part of their collective ethos is having priorities outside of the band. “It's not like this is our one and only focus and we're going to just always be together,” Carlos says. “We all go do stuff, we have families, and then we come together to make music.”

Based on those deafening screams from hype crowds, it seems Big Time Rush’s philosophy – and music — might just be working. “The fans all know the lyrics,” Carlos says. “Some of them even better than we do.” What more could the band want?

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• All setlist songs  ( 243 )

Years on tour

• 2023  ( 58 )
• 2022  ( 49 )
• 2021  ( 4 )
• 2014  ( 5 )
• 2013  ( 28 )
• 2012  ( 57 )
• 2011  ( 39 )
• 2010  ( 3 )

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• Better With U Tour  ( 10 )
• Big Time Concert  ( 1 )
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• Big Time Summer Tour  ( 41 )
• Can’t Get Enough Tour  ( 39 )
• Forever Tour  ( 48 )
• Holiday Extravaganza  ( 1 )
• Live World Tour  ( 5 )
• Special Event  ( 1 )
• Summer Break Tour  ( 27 )
• Avg Setlist
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Average setlist for tour: Forever Tour

• Windows Down Play Video
• Music Sounds Better Play Video
• Honey Play Video
• Love Me Again Play Video
• Any Kind of Guy Play Video
• Amazing Play Video
• Call It Like I See It Play Video
• Dale Pa' Ya Play Video
• Show Me Play Video
• Not Giving You Up Play Video
• Halfway There Play Video
• Stuck Play Video
• No Idea Play Video
• Confetti Falling Play Video
• I Know You Know Play Video
• Worldwide Play Video
• Time of Our Life Play Video
• Paralyzed Play Video
• Fall Play Video
• Song played from tape Boyfriend (Justin Bieber) / Old Town Road / Oops!...I Did It Again / Never Gonna Give You Up Play Video
• City Is Ours / Big Night / Til I Forget About You Play Video
• Nothing Even Matters Play Video
• If I Ruled the World Play Video
• Big Time Rush Play Video
• Boyfriend Play Video

Show Openers

Main set closers, show closers, encores played.

This feature is not that experimental anymore. Nevertheless, please give feedback if the results don't make any sense to you.

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Big Time Rush Announces Forever Tour 2022

The Forever Tour 2022 is here!

Just when we thought we were set on tour announcements for the summer, Big Time Rush did what they do best and surprised fans this morning with the announcement.

Exclusively announced this morning on Good Morning America, Kendall Schmidt , James Maslow, Logan Henderson , and Carlos PenaVega hit the morning show this morning to announce the extensive Forever Tour 2022 and premiere their new single “Not Giving you Up.”

Starting in Washington D.C. and finishing in Concord, CA, the tour hits almost every major city across the US. Big Time Rush will also include opener Dixie D’Amelio across the dates, which was hinted at during a Twitter Spaces event with both D’Amelio and Maslow late last year.

Want more from Big Time Rush? Call or text 903-287-9198 to get in touch with Big Time Relationship Services.

Check out the dates for the Forever Tour 2022 below.

Tickets go on sale for fan club members starting on Wednesday with public on-sale Friday. Head to Big Time Rush’s website for ticket info here .

Headed to one of the dates on the Forever Tour 2022? Let us know on Twitter !

EXCLUSIVE: "We are so excited to announce that we are officially back and we're going on tour!" It's a GREAT day to be a @bigtimerush fan! https://t.co/kWY5S6eOU4 pic.twitter.com/HmXTcTBTKr — Good Morning America (@GMA) February 21, 2022

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One of four founders of Beyond The Stage, Addie Whelan is the Editor In Chief of Beyond The Stage Magazine. With a passion for social media and digital trends, Addie can often be found on Reddit looking for the latest music and baking dark chocolate olive oil cookies.

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Big Time Rush: Forever Tour

Presented By:

the Mann & Live Nation

*Ticket prices are subject to change

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Big Time Rush are back in a big way! Carlos PenaVega, James Maslow, Logan Henderson, and Kendall Schmidt have reunited with new music and concerts for their loyal fans. Don't miss your favorite boy band at TD Pavilion at the Mann on June 28 as part of their upcoming Forever Tour with Dixie D’Amelio.

Tickets are on sale now via Ticketmaster.com , (800) 982-2787, or the Mann Box Office .   Fast lane and premier parking upgrades are available for this show.

Digital Program

We're going paperless! For a copy of the season's touchless and environmentally-friendly program, text  PROGRAM  to  (215) 544-2803 . Instructions  here .

The Mann's bag policy is for the safety of our patrons, to minimize our staff having to touch patron personal belongings during the required search of all bags before entering the venue. Bags must be an individual  CLEAR  plastic, vinyl, or PVC tote bag no larger than 12"x6"x12" with a single compartment and/or a small  NON-CLEAR  clutch bag (4.5"x6.5"). Backpacks are not allowed. Patrons who arrive with a bag other than what is permitted may purchase a clear plastic tote for $10 at the gates.

Safety Precautions

As of May 26— For this event, there is no vaccination or testing policy for patrons to enter.

In the best interest of fans and staff, we will continue to monitor local COVID-19 trends and meet or exceed protocols mandated by local governments. By purchasing tickets to this event, unless prohibited by law, you agree to abide by the health and safety measures in effect at the time of the event, which may include, but not be limited to, wearing masks, providing proof of vaccination status and/or providing proof of negative COVID-19 test. Check back often for updates to this event page as guidelines are subject to change.

The Mann is proud to be a part of the World Travel & Tourism Council's Safe Travels Program and the PHL Health Pledge . These seals signal our commitment to safely welcoming patrons back to the venue. 

Picnics are not allowed for this performance. 

If you are 21 years of age or older and plan to consume alcohol at the concert, please be prepared to present proper I.D.

Small blankets are permitted for all shows, but we do ask that you be mindful of your neighbors on the lawn. 

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Parking Information

Parking is free for this show.

Getting to the Mann is easier than ever!

No photography is permitted at this performance.

Original line up back together, Big Time Rush brings Forever Tour to Darien Lake

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After an eight-year break, the boy band Big Time Rush is back with all four original members  -- Kendall Schmidt, James Maslow, Logan Henderson and Carlos PenaVega -- on board, with three new singles added to their three-album catalog and a major tour underway.

In returning to the music scene, Henderson, Maslow, PenaVega and Schmidt plan to be more involved in all aspects of Big Time Rush’s career. Where Nickelodeon (which ran four seasons of the group’s television series, “Big Time Rush”) and Columbia Records gave the group plenty of resources for promotion first time around, Big Time Rush is now an independent operation. Nevertheless, Schmidt reported that ticket sales for the Forever tour have been strong.

“I think we’re one of the few independent artists who’s able to do a nationwide tour that’s doing as well, and we might be one of the only ones,” Schmidt said during a Zoom interview with all four band members. “We’re doing our music independently, we’re doing this tour independently…It’s really exciting because we were always into this vision of wanting to be the creative force behind (the group), but now we actually get the chance to do that. What you’re seeing is 100 percent (us).”

Big Time Rush Forever Tour is set for 8 p.m. July 3 at Darien Lake Amphitheater at Six Flags Darien Lake Theme Park. 

If things go as planned, fans will be seeing and hearing Big Time Rush for years to come.

“This is a reunion tour, but it certainly isn’t just one reunion tour,” Maslow said. “We plan on continuing to do our music and continuing to tour and continuing to grow. The sky’s the limit.”

As for the live show, it will be bigger and better than anything the four singers have done before, featuring a more elaborate stage set with five levels and a more cohesive presentation.

“I feel like this go-around we have the most put-together show we’ve ever had,” PenaVega said. “Things flow better, there’s not a lot of breaks in between songs. There are like a lot of transition pieces, and it really feels like one big solid show. Before they were great shows, but it was a little more free form. I think this is more polished.”

Photo: Submitted photo.

Alan Scully is a freelance music feature writer.

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Big Time Rush: Forever Tour

With special guest dixie d'amelio.

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Whales Have an Alphabet

Until the 1960s, it was uncertain whether whales made any sounds at all..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

From “The New York Times,” I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.”

Today, ever since the discovery that whales produce songs, scientists have been trying to find a way to decipher their lyrics. After 60 years, they may have finally done it. My colleague, Carl Zimmer, explains.

It’s Friday, May 24.

I have to say, after many years of working with you on everything from the pandemic to —

— CRISPR DNA technology, that it turns out your interests are even more varied than I had thought, and they include whales.

They do indeed.

And why? What is it about the whale that captures your imagination?

I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody who is not fascinated by whales. I mean, these are mammals like us, and they’re swimming around in the water. They have brains that are much bigger than ours. They can live maybe 200 years. These are incredible animals, and animals that we still don’t really understand.

Right. Well, it is this majestic creature that brings us together today, Carl, because you have been reporting on a big breakthrough in our understanding of how it is that whales communicate. But I think in order for that breakthrough to make sense, I think we’re going to have to start with what we have known up until now about how whales interact. So tell us about that.

Well, people knew that whales and dolphins traveled together in groups, but up until the 1960s, we didn’t really know that whales actually made any sounds at all. It was actually sort of an accident that we came across it. The American military was developing sophisticated microphones to put underwater. They wanted to listen for Russian submarines.

As one does. But there was an engineer in Bermuda, and he started hearing some weird stuff.

[WHALE SOUNDS]

And he wondered maybe if he was actually listening to whales.

What made him wonder if it was whales, of all things?

Well, this sound did not sound like something geological.

It didn’t sound like some underwater landslide or something like that. This sounded like a living animal making some kind of call. It has these incredible deep tones that rise up into these strange, almost falsetto type notes.

It was incredibly loud. And so it would have to be some really big animal. And so with humpback whales swimming around Bermuda, this engineer thought, well, maybe these are humpback whales.

And so he gets in touch with a husband and wife team of whale biologists, Roger and Katy Payne, and plays these recordings to them. And they’re pretty convinced that they’re hearing whales, too. And then they go on to go out and confirm that by putting microphones in the water, chasing after groups of whales and confirming, yes, indeed, that these sounds are coming from these humpback whales.

So once these scientists confirm in their minds that these are the sounds of a whale, what happens with this discovery?

Well, Roger and Katy Payne and their colleagues are astonished that this species of whale is swimming around singing all the time for hours on end. And it’s so inspirational to them that they actually help to produce a record that they release “The Song of the Humpback Whale” in 1970.

And so this is being sold in record stores, you know, along with Jimi Hendrix and Rolling Stones. And it is a huge hit.

Yeah, it sells like two million copies.

Well, at the time, it was a huge cultural event. This record, this became almost like an anthem of the environmental movement. And it led, for whales in particular, to a lot of protections for them because now people could appreciate that whales were a lot more marvelous and mysterious than they maybe had appreciated before.

And so you have legislation, like the Marine Mammal Act. The United States just agrees just to stop killing whales. It stops its whaling industry. And so you could argue that the discovery of these whale songs in Bermuda led to at least some species of whales escaping extinction.

Well, beyond the cultural impact of this discovery, which is quite meaningful, I wonder whether scientists and marine biologists are figuring out what these whale songs are actually communicating.

So the Paynes create a whole branch of science, the study of whale songs. It turns out that pretty much every species of whale that we know of sings in some way or another. And it turns out that within a species, different groups of whales in different parts of the world may sing with a different dialect. But the big question of what these whales are singing, what do these songs mean, that remains elusive into the 21st century. And things don’t really change until scientists decide to take a new look at the problem in a new way.

And what is that new way?

So in 2020, a group of whale biologists, including Roger Payne, come together with computer scientists from MIT. Instead of humpback whales, which were the whales where whale songs are first discovered, these scientists decide to study sperm whales in the Caribbean. And humpback whales and sperm whales have very, very different songs. So if you’re used to humpback whales with their crazy high and low singing voices —

Right, those best-selling sounds.

— those are rockin’ tunes of the humpback whales, that’s not what sperm whales do. Sperm whales have a totally different way of communicating with each other. And I actually have some recordings that were provided by the scientists who have been doing this research. And so we can take a listen to some of them.

Wow, It’s like a rhythmic clicking.

These are a group of sperm whales swimming together, communicating.

So whale biologists knew already that there was some structure to this sound. Those clicks that you hear, they come in little pulses. And each of those pulses is known as a coda. And whale biologists had given names to these different codas. So, for example, they call one coda, one plus one plus three —

— which is basically click, click, click, click, click, or four plus three, where you have four clicks in a row and a pause and then three clicks in a row.

Right. And the question would seem to be, is this decipherable communication, or is this just whale gibberish?

Well, this is where the computer scientists were able to come in and to help out. The whale biologists who were listening to the codas from the sperm whales in the Caribbean, they had identified about 21 types. And then that would seem to be about it.

But then, an MIT computer science graduate student named Prajusha Sharma was given the job of listening to them again.

And what does she hear?

In a way, it’s not so much what she heard, but what she saw.

Because when scientists record whale songs, you can look at it kind of like if you’re looking at an audio of a recording of your podcast, you will see the little squiggles of your voice.

And so whale biologists would just look at that ticker of whale songs going across the screen and try to compare them. And Sharma said, I don’t like this. I just — this is not how I look at data. And so what she decided to do is she decided to kind of just visualize the data differently. And essentially, she just kind of flipped these images on their side and saw something totally new.

And what she saw was that sperm whales were singing a whole bunch of things that nobody had actually been hearing.

One thing that she discovered was that you could have a whale that was producing a coda over and over and over again, but it was actually playing with it. It was actually stretching out the coda,

[CLICKING] So to get a little bit longer and a little bit longer, a little bit longer.

And then get shorter and shorter and shorter again. They could play with their codas in a way that nobody knew before. And she also started to see that a whale might throw in an extra click at the end of a coda. So it would be repeating a coda over and over again and then boom, add an extra one right at the end. What they would call an ornamentation. So now, you have yet another signal that these whales are using.

And if we just look at what the sperm whales are capable of producing in terms of different codas, we go from just 21 types that they had found in the Caribbean before to 156. So what the scientists are saying is that what we might be looking at is what they call a sperm whale phonetic alphabet.

Yeah, that’s a pretty big deal because the only species that we know of for sure that has a phonetic alphabet —

— is us, exactly. So the reason that we can use language is because we can make a huge range of sounds by just doing little things with our mouths. A little change in our lips can change a bah to a dah. And so we are able to produce a set of phonetic sounds. And we put those sounds together to make words.

So now, we have sperm whales, which have at least 150 of these different versions of sounds that they make just by making little adjustments to the existing way that they make sounds. And so you can make a chart of their phonetic alphabet, just like you make a chart of the human phonetic alphabet.

So then, that raises the question, do they combine their phonetic alphabet into words? Do they combine their words into sentences? In other words, do sperm whales have a language of their own?

Right. Are they talking to each other, really talking to each other?

If we could really show that whales had language on par with humans, that would be like finding intelligent life on another planet.

We’ll be right back.

So, Carl, how should we think about this phonetic alphabet and whether sperm whales are actually using it to talk to each other?

The scientists on this project are really careful to say that these results do not definitively prove what these sperm whale sounds are. There are a handful of possibilities here in terms of what this study could mean. And one of them is that the whales really are using full-blown language.

What they might be talking about, we don’t know. I mean, perhaps they like to talk about their travels over hundreds and thousands of miles. Maybe they’re talking about, you know, the giant squid that they caught last night. Maybe they’re gossiping about each other.

And you have to remember, sperm whales are incredibly social animals. They have relationships that last for decades. And they live in groups that are in clans of thousands of whales. I mean, imagine the opportunities for gossip.

These are all at least imaginable now. But it’s also possible that they are communicating with each other, but in a way that isn’t language as we know it. You know, maybe these sounds that they’re producing don’t add up to sentences. There’s no verb there. There’s no noun. There’s no structure to it in terms of how we think of language.

But maybe they’re still conveying information to each other. Maybe they’re somehow giving out who they are and what group they belong to. But it’s not in the form of language that we think of.

Right. Maybe it’s more kind of caveman like as in whale to whale, look, there, food.

It’s possible. But, you know, other species have evolved in other directions. And so you have to put yourself in the place of a sperm whale. You know, so think about this. They are communicating in the water. And actually, like sending sounds through water is a completely different experience than through the air like we do.

So a sperm whale might be communicating to the whale right next to it a few yards away, but it might be communicating with whales miles away, hundreds of miles away. They’re in the dark a lot of the time, so they don’t even see the whales right next to them. So it’s just this constant sound that they’re making because they’re in this dark water.

So we might want to imagine that such a species would talk the way we do, but there are just so many reasons to expect that whatever they’re communicating might be just profoundly different, so different that it’s actually hard for us to imagine. And so we need to really, you know, let ourselves be open to lots of possibilities.

And one possibility that some scientists have raised is that maybe language is just the wrong model to think about. Maybe we need to think about music. You know, maybe this strange typewriter, clickety clack is actually not like a Morse code message, but is actually a real song. It’s a kind of music that doesn’t necessarily convey information the way conversation does, but it brings the whales together.

In humans, like, when we humans sing together in choruses, it can be a very emotional experience. It’s a socially bonding experience, but it’s not really like the specific words that we’re singing that bring us together when we’re singing. It’s sharing the music together.

But at a certain point, we stop singing in the chorus, and we start asking each other questions like, hey, what are you doing for dinner? How are you going to get home? There’s a lot of traffic on the BQE. So we are really drawn to the possibility that whales are communicating in that same kind of a mode.

We’re exchanging information. We’re seeking out each other’s well-being and emotional state. And we’re building something together.

And I think that happens because, I mean, language is so fundamental to us as human beings. I mean, it’s like every moment of our waking life depends on language. We are talking to ourselves if we’re not talking to other people.

In our sleep, we dream, and there are words in our dreams. And we’re just stewing in language. And so it’s really, really hard for us to understand how other species might have a really complex communication system with hundreds of different little units of sound that they can use and they can deploy. And to think anything other than, well, they must be talking about traffic on the BQE. Like —

— we’re very human-centric. And we have to resist that.

So what we end up having here is a genuine breakthrough in our understanding of how whales interact. And that seems worth celebrating in and of itself. But it really kind of doubles as a lesson in humility for us humans when it comes to appreciating the idea that there are lots of non-human ways in which language can exist.

That’s right. Humility is always a good idea when we’re thinking about other animals.

So what now happens in this realm of research? And how is it that these scientists, these marine biologists and these computer scientists are going to try to figure out what exactly this alphabet amounts to and how it’s being used?

So what’s going to happen now is a real sea change in gathering data from whales.

So to speak.

So these scientists are now deploying a new generation of undersea microphones. They’re using drones to follow these whales. And what they want to do is they want to be recording sounds from the ocean where these whales live 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And so the hope is that instead of getting, say, a few 100 codas each year on recording, these scientists want to get several hundred million every year, maybe billions of codas every year.

And once you get that much data from whales, then you can start to do some really amazing stuff with artificial intelligence. So these scientists hope that they can use the same kind of artificial intelligence that is behind things like ChatGPT or these artificial intelligence systems that are able to take recordings of people talking and transcribing them into text. They want to use that on the whale communication.

They want to just grind through vast amounts of data, and maybe they will discover more phonetic letters in this alphabet. Who knows? Maybe they will actually find bigger structures, structures that could correspond to language.

If you go really far down this route of possibilities, the hope is that you would understand what sperm whales are saying to each other so well that you could actually create artificial sperm whale communication, and you could play it underwater. You could talk to the sperm whales. And they would talk back. They would react somehow in a way that you had predicted. If that happens, then maybe, indeed, sperm whales have something like language as we understand it.

And the only way we’re going to figure that out is if we figure out not just how they talk to themselves, but how we can perhaps talk to them, which, given everything we’ve been talking about here, Carl, is a little bit ironic because it’s pretty human-centric.

That’s right. This experiment could fail. It’s possible that sperm whales don’t do anything like language as we know it. Maybe they’re doing something that we can’t even imagine yet. But if sperm whales really are using codas in something like language, we are going to have to enter the conversation to really understand it.

Well, Carl, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thank you. Sorry. Can I say that again? My voice got really high all of a sudden.

A little bit like a whale’s. Ooh.

Yeah, exactly. Woot. Woot.

Thank yoooo. No. Thank you.

Here’s what else you need to know today.

We allege that Live Nation has illegally monopolized markets across the live concert industry in the United States for far too long. It is time to break it up.

On Thursday, the Justice Department sued the concert giant Live Nation Entertainment, which owns Ticketmaster, for violating federal antitrust laws and sought to break up the $23 billion conglomerate. During a news conference, Attorney General Merrick Garland said that Live Nation’s monopolistic tactics had hurt the entire industry of live events.

The result is that fans pay more in fees, artists have fewer opportunities to play concerts, smaller promoters get squeezed out, and venues have fewer real choices.

In a statement, Live Nation called the lawsuit baseless and vowed to fight it in court.

A reminder — tomorrow, we’ll be sharing the latest episode of our colleagues’ new show, “The Interview.” This week on “The Interview,” Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Ted Sarandos, the CEO of Netflix, about his plans to make the world’s largest streaming service even bigger.

I don’t agree with the premise that quantity and quality are somehow in conflict with each other. I think our content and our movie programming has been great, but it’s just not all for you.

Today’s episode was produced by Alex Stern, Stella Tan, Sydney Harper, and Nina Feldman. It was edited by MJ Davis, contains original music by Pat McCusker, Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop, Marion Lozano, and Sophia Lanman, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly.

Special thanks to Project SETI for sharing their whale recordings.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Michael Barbaro. See you on Tuesday after the holiday.

• May 31, 2024   •   31:29 Guilty
• May 30, 2024   •   25:21 The Government Takes On Ticketmaster
• May 29, 2024   •   29:46 The Closing Arguments in the Trump Trial
• May 28, 2024   •   25:56 The Alitos and Their Flags
• May 24, 2024   •   25:18 Whales Have an Alphabet
• May 23, 2024   •   34:24 I.C.C. Prosecutor Requests Warrants for Israeli and Hamas Leaders
• May 22, 2024   •   23:20 Biden’s Open War on Hidden Fees
• May 21, 2024   •   24:14 The Crypto Comeback
• May 20, 2024   •   31:51 Was the 401(k) a Mistake?
• May 19, 2024   •   33:23 The Sunday Read: ‘Why Did This Guy Put a Song About Me on Spotify?’
• May 17, 2024   •   51:10 The Campus Protesters Explain Themselves
• May 16, 2024   •   30:47 The Make-or-Break Testimony of Michael Cohen

Hosted by Michael Barbaro

Featuring Carl Zimmer

Produced by Alex Stern ,  Stella Tan ,  Sydney Harper and Nina Feldman

Edited by MJ Davis Lin

Original music by Elisheba Ittoop ,  Dan Powell ,  Marion Lozano ,  Sophia Lanman and Pat McCusker

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube

Ever since the discovery of whale songs almost 60 years ago, scientists have been trying to decipher the lyrics.

But sperm whales don’t produce the eerie melodies sung by humpback whales, sounds that became a sensation in the 1960s. Instead, sperm whales rattle off clicks that sound like a cross between Morse code and a creaking door. Carl Zimmer, a science reporter, explains why it’s possible that the whales are communicating in a complex language.

On today’s episode

Carl Zimmer , a science reporter for The New York Times who also writes the Origins column .

Background reading

Scientists find an “alphabet” in whale songs.

These whales still use their vocal cords. But how?

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The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam.

Carl Zimmer covers news about science for The Times and writes the Origins column . More about Carl Zimmer

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